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Well, Hebrew doesn't write vowels most of the time, they're implied. Alef (א) is actually the sound of silence, followed by a vowel. For right now, you can just guess A and be right a lot of the time, but you'll get used to reading after a while. If it comes before a waw (vav, ו) it's O or U, like in או.
The vowel is called segol. This is an example but with less space between. It goes under the letters. . . .
I think you mean Hirik/chirik אִ which makes an "i/ee" sound instead of segol is אֶ which makes an "eh" sound like in "bet". אִמָּא
Well, it's not the sound of silence, it is a glottal stop. But since Europeans won't get it anyways, you're kinda right.
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Or the kid's trying to decide which one to ask permission for something they might say no to. ;)
- 1365
או is pronounced like o (with a shorter sound though like in the word old), but it is a word that means or (as in either dad or mom)
I was struggling to understand why "או" is pronounced "o". It says in the tips and notes that "א - Aleph" is silent and that "ו - Vav" is pronounced "v". However, I found this useful video which that "ו" can be pronounced "v", "o", and "u", which helps explain why it's pronounced "o".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJUMyHR0zN4 I hope that helps and recommend giving some of the videos a watch.
The pronunciation of "או" being pronounced "o"? Does that have to do with when the language was being revived and it took some Indo-European influence? Like "o" be or in Spanish also?
The natural way to spell "o" as a word is "או", so I'm not sure what you find strange here.
Having said that, in Arabic this word is pronounced with the diphthong a-u (as in English "how"). To take a wild guess (I'm not a linguist), in very ancient Hebrew or proto-semitic it was this diphthong, and then Hebrew (or some ancestor of it) contracted it to sound "o" as happens often in many languages (most "au"s in English, for example). That must have happened before the nikkud was invented in the 11th century.
Why is "and" separate in this case? "אבא או אמא" instead of "אבא ואמא"?
- 1365
In "אבא או אמא" the middle word (או) is a word that means or. In "אמא ואבא" the first letter of the second word is actually the word and. In Hebrew we use and just with one letter (ו) that is added to the word at the beginning of it
It is diffrent cases: אבא ואמא - dad and mom אבא או אמא? - dad or mom או = or ו = and
Because it's "or",not "and" it is another word, containing 2 letters,aleph and vav, instand of single vav, I am not 100% sure, but it looks like only 1-letter words stick to the next word, besides you lost aleph, so your 2nd variant is wrong from every point of view
